Services Mon. for poet, playwright, musician Harriet Woodcock

GAINESVILLE - Graveside services will be held Monday for noted Gainesville playwright, poet and musician Harriet Woodcock, who died Thursday following an extended illness.

Woodcock, who was 84, was the author of numerous plays and poems, a founding member of the Northeast Georgia Writers Club and was instrumental in the founding of the forerunner to the Gainesville Symphony Orchestra.

She studied violin with her mother and piano with Eliza Holmes Feldman, both former music teachers at Brenau College (now Brenau University). As a teenager, by competing in a talent search contest held in Atlanta, she won a trip to New York City to play the violin on "The Radio Music Hall of the Air" program.

Woodcock earned a degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and graduated cum laude from Brenau with a music degree.

She served as music chairman for the National League of Penwomen, was an active member of the Progressive Arts Club and a founding member of the Northeast Georgia Writers Club. She played an instrumental role in establishing the Lanier Symphonette, which became the impetus for the Gainesville Symphony Orchestra.

Some of the highlights of Harriet's musical-literary career include: "The Song of Sydney Lanier, A Musical Operetta of Compelling Story and Lyrical Sound," presented by the Heritage Musical Theatre, and "A Man of Soul and Soil, The Story of Byron Herbert Reece," presented at the Georgia Literary Festival hi 2007. She wrote many musicals, including "A Cruise for Cherie," which was performed on a showboat at Stone Mountain.

Woodcock and friend, Mary Ellen Collier, co-authored two children's books featuring "The Chaotic Angel."